Comparing Comparison Sites… a meerkat, an opera singer or a dragon!

Comparison Site Mascots…

What next: A singing meerkat, pushing a dragon around a supermarket?

Aleksandr Orlov (ComparetheMeerkat.com… I mean CompareTheMarket.com), Gio Compario (fat opera singing Gocompare mascot) and Peter Jones (dragon and Moneysupermarket mascot). By now you will be familiar with them as the talismans of their respective websites. But why have they become the UK’s most successful insurance brokers?

Dawn of the Meerkat

Up to 2008/9 Comparethemarket was languishing at the back of the main comparison sites as nothing more than an also ran. Out of nowhere they launched the meerkat (Aleksandr the creation of VCCP advertising agency owned by Lord Bell’s Chime Communications)  on an unsuspecting public.

Market reaction

• Comparethemarket.com, has seen an 83 per cent increase in traffice since January.
• Admiral, (owner of Confused.com), has blames the meerkat in part for a drop in its online business and when it admitted to a 30 per cent drop in Confused.com’s profits.
• Comparethemarket.com market share in the insurance comparison market soared by 76 per cent between January and August (source: Hitwise  the online intelligence company). In the same period rivals MoneySupermarket.com, Confused.com and Gocompare.com saw 25.2 per cent, 5 per cent and 31.8 per cent drops in market share for insurance respectively.

Why?

I remember when the original car insurance comparison site war was heating up and the top 3 (at the time) moneysupermarket, confused and gocompare all had essentially the same advert. White background, man and woman, and savings to be made.

I think there was a certain amount of honesty in this approach. As they were and are essentially the same. They can’t promise to be better than the rest, because they are not. They can’t guarantee to beat their competitors on price or policy features every time so it made sense that they just served up the same ad!

As this market matures and there is a lack of distinction between providers consumers are realising they need to check prices on a few comparison sites. Maybe the sites with the best mascots?

US insurance company Geico’s Gecko mascot provides an insight into the wisdom of mascots in insurance.